


gonna need a spark to ignite

by aceofdiamonds



Series: is that such a stretch of the imagination? [1]
Category: Gossip Girl, Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-19 00:00:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aceofdiamonds/pseuds/aceofdiamonds
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I don't have warm feelings towards a lot of people," she says with a tired smile. </p>
<p>Harry watches her re-apply her lipstick like she's something he's never seen before; usually she knows how to handle that sort of look but he's come into her life with his magic and his messy hair and tilted the balance Blair's worked so hard to restore over here in Italy. "I was at a ceremony," he says apropos of nothing. "A memorial."</p>
            </blockquote>





	gonna need a spark to ignite

**Author's Note:**

> um this is set a couple of years after the gossip girl finale and the final battle but blair isn't married to chuck anymore and they never found out who gossip girl was and harry and blair are both 20/21 because this is my self-indulgent fic so i'm changing things to make it work

 

 

Blair first comes across him when she’s wandering down by the marina in Southern Italy while Dorota’s in a tacky tourist store somewhere nearby looking for gifts for Vanya and those two children. Blair’s not getting anyone gifts; she came here to get away from everyone, why should she reward them for that.

She’s standing alone beside the railing looking down at a yacht coming in across the sea when there’s a _crack_ beside her and suddenly she’s not alone anymore. A man has literally appeared out of nowhere and is bent at the waist gasping for breath.

“What the fuck?” She’s not usually so vulgar, she’s classier than that, but sometimes the situation demands it.

“Sorry,” the man gasps, clutching at his side. He has something in his hand, a stick of some sorts and he's wearing -- is that a cloak? Weirdo. “I didn’t mean to -- I wasn’t thinking when I --”

“Where did you come from?” Blair demands next because her life has been absurd enough that she wouldn’t put it past Chuck to have her followed all the way to Italy. "What do you want?"

He stands up straight, his breathing finally evening out, and runs a hand through his hair which is black and looks like it's never seen a comb. "I was just looking for somewhere quiet. Again, I'm really sorry."

He turns to leave then and Blair, for some unfathomable reason, reaches out and grabs his wrist. "Wait. I should apologise for my rudeness. I'm a little on edge."

“Tell me about it,” is the reply, and maybe he is a mess and a freak and there’s no ruling out Chuck but she deserves some company, she’s allowing herself to have this, so she asks him his name and ignores the mixed look of confusion and relief she gets in return. “Oh. I’m Harry. Harry Potter.”

“British,” she says, and he nods, twirling the stick through his fingers. Sparks come out the end which she ignores because it’s warm here under the sun and she’s forgotten her hat. She must be delirious; she is only going to deal with one thing at a time. “I’m Blair Waldorf.”

“Look, I really have to go."

“Don't." Harry laughs, a shaky sort of sound like he doesn't do it much. It sounds like Blair’s laugh. “I mean, I must be out of my mind but would you like to get a coffee?”

And he thinks for a bit, turning the offer over in his head like he doesn't know that she doesn't do this much and then he smiles, looking a bit calmer than before. “Alright then, Blair. Lead the way.”

She looks him over properly when they’re sitting at a table in the corner under a big umbrella. He has taken off that disgusting cloak and draped it over the back of his chair revealing a shirt and black trousers that look entirely too smart to be worn in these parts, Italian or not. Not that Blair can talk in her Dior sundress and Louboutins but she was raised this way and god that hair tells her everything she needs to know about him. She can see scars here and there -- odd shaped marks on the back of his hand and peeking out from his collar and when he runs his hand through his hair again she catches a glimpse of a thin red mark above his right eyebrow, and yet she doesn't get up and leave. She has scars of her own, just not the visible kind. She can handle this.

“So,” she starts when the silence has continued for too long and Harry doesn’t look like he’s planning on breaking it. He’s sipping his coffee slowly, taking in everything around them in an almost paranoid way that makes Blair curious. “What are you doing in Italy?”

“ _Italy_ ,” Harry says like this is something new. When he notices her frown he blinks. “Oh. I was at a thing and I had to leave.”

“Could that have been any more vague?”

He laughs again and drains his cup. Blair’s only halfway through her latte. Italians take hot to the next level. “Vague is what I’m used to.”

“Are you going to continue to be deliberately obtuse when I ask how the hell you seemed to appear out of nowhere?”

“I’m a fast runner?”

“And a terrible liar.” She leans forward with her elbow on the table and her chin on her hand and watches Harry work to fabricate another excuse. She hasn’t had fun in a while. “Next thing you’ll be telling me you’re magic or something equally stupid.”

“Ha. Well.” He rubs the back of his neck and looks down at the table and this is all so ridiculous.

“You’re an idiot.”

“Hey. I’m only trying to tell you the truth.”

Blair leans back, bored with the turn of conversation. She’d been hoping for a bit of drama, something some scheming could fix. She’s not interested in flimsy tales that hold no logic whatsoever. “Right. Prove it then.”

Harry shakes his head because of course he can’t prove it. “I can’t here. There’re Muggles everywhere.”

“Excuse me?” Is that British slang for Italians? She misses New York suddenly.

“You know. Non-magic people.”

“Oh of course. How silly of me. You’re turning out worse than I thought, Harry. I have better things to do.”

This time she’s the one being asked to stay, the hand on her arm just what she was expecting. She grew up on the Upper East Side, she knows how to get what she wants, and right now the sun is hitting Harry in just the right way to make his green eyes shine and his jaw is strong and really, she deserves this. She sits back down.

“I really am a wizard,” Harry says and then he rolls his eyes at himself so Blair doesn't have to do it for him. “I haven’t had to tell anyone that in a long time.”

“I’m flattered,” she sighs, picking up her drink again. His hand is on the table between them and if she squints she can see the whiteness of old scars on his skin. “You still haven’t given me any evidence to believe you’re anything but an employee of Chuck’s.”

“I don’t know who Chuck is?” Harry says and then he makes the bowl of sugar in the centre of the table float and change to green. “And I just did magic in the presence of so many Muggles.” He looks around again but no one is glancing in their direction. Blair wonders briefly what Gossip Girl would make of this -- Queen B and the English Magician. “You’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”

Honestly, she still doesn’t know what to believe and her reputation is as much at risk here as Harry Potter seems to think his is so she rolls her eyes and finishes her latte. "You've intrigued me. I might as well see this through."

"I could turn your shoes into puppies," Harry offers.

Blair laughs for the first time in she doesn't know how long. "And why would I want that? These are Limited Edition Louboutins."

"And they're, um, very nice?"

He reminds her of Dan, she thinks, the comparison slamming into her and making her bite her lip. He's got this voice that tells her he's not half impressed by her as he should be and he's looking at the book in her bag like he's familiar with it and really, she left New York to get away from many people, Dan included. "You remind me of someone I know," she tells him because it's no use keeping such things secret.

"You don't have warm feelings towards that person, do you?" Harry shreds a packet of sugar with his fingers, pushing the granules into a pile beside his cup.

"I don't have warm feelings towards a lot of people," she says with a tired smile.

Harry watches her re-apply her lipstick like she's something he's never seen before, usually she knows how to handle that sort of look but he's come into her life with his magic and his messy hair and tilted the balance Blair's worked so hard to restore over here in Italy. "I was at a ceremony," he says apropos of nothing. "A memorial."

"Oh? It's disrespectful to leave those sorts of things early, is it not? Or do you have different rules?"

"No, no." Harry leans back in his chair, his arm coming up behind his head. It should be the picture of relaxation but there's a hint of agitation around the edges. "I was the guest of honour and, well --"

"You didn't like that title? God, you wouldn't fit into my life back home." Blair stands up, raises her eyebrow when Harry doesn't move. "Come on, then. You can buy me a gelato."

"What're you escaping from then?" he asks once they've set off across the marina, his hands shoved in his pockets, his cloak discreetly shrunk and slipped into his trouser pocket. She can see his thumb running over the tip of his wand, never letting it out of his reach. A wizard with an unwanted ceremony back home -- she kind of wants to know more about that.

Harry takes a bunch of coins out of his pocket which surely can't be legally used anywhere then he picks out a couple of the big gold ones and taps them with his wand so they turn into a pile of euros. She wonders what the exchange rate is like for wizards and then wishes she had never allowed a sentence like that to cross her mind.

"Who says I'm escaping anything?" she says.

"You have that look," Harry shrugs.

"What look?"

"You know." He waves his hand in the air, his nose scrunched up. "The escaping look."

"You're infuriating, Potter."

"And you're impatient, Waldorf," he grins, stepping back when she goes to hit his arm. Laughing, he leads the way into a typical little ice cream parlour with a striped canopy above the door and shiny counters with pastel stools. Harry stops just inside the door, spreading his arms and smiling when Blair rolls her eyes and pushes him forward. “Take in the air conditioning, Blair. Beautiful.”

“Get the ice cream, Potter.” He does as he’s told, practically bounding over to the counter while Blair perches on a lilac stool in the corner. She takes out her phone, checking Gossip Girl because habits never die and a breath of relief whooshes out of her when she sees her absence is still a leading story, no leads anywhere, everyone please come forward with information. See. This is why she needed to escape -- Gossip Girl is all well and good when you’re sixteen and popularity is the most important thing in your life, and yes, okay, the thrill of it extended for a few years with Blair but then it caused her heartache and the loss of so many things she cared about and now she just wants rid of it once and for all.

"I got you rum and raisin," Harry says handing her the cone with three huge scoops of red and pink ice cream. He bites off the swirl of dark chocolate from the top of his own. "My friend likes pistachio best and you're the opposite of her, so."

"Interesting method of decision making." She licks the middle scoop, a smile leaking out around the glob on her tongue. She forgets how much she loves Italy when it's compared to New York, Paris, London. It's so much more relaxed here, down by the Mediterranean. "And it brought you to the correct conclusion."

"I worked as an Auror back home, you know. A policeman sort of," he adds when Blair narrows her eyes at him. "I'm good at observation."

"So am I." She goes to mention her own career as a fashion designer but instead leaps on this tiny bit of information. "You said worked, past tense, what happened?"

He looks at her from under his fringe, those green eyes wide. "It's kind of personal and we've only just met?"

Blair scoffs. "Ugh. You really wouldn't fit in on the Upper East Side."

"Lemme guess... everyone tells each other everything and then gets upset when their secrets are spread across the city?"

"So you've been?" she raises an eyebrow then leads the way out of the parlour back into the bright sun. She should have brought her hat; she wonders where Dorota is.

"I had the escaping look for the last four years." He has the conversation ability of a five year old. Blair's keeping up. "I know what it looks like."

"Yeah, well, I thought Italy would be the best place to hide out for a few weeks and then you showed up --"

"I was going to leave!" Harry says all defensive. His ice cream is dripping down his cone onto his hand and when she points it out to him with one purple-nailed finger he links it off enthusiastically. Blair sighs. She's known this man for all of an hour and she's been pulled in deep. She refuses to go through the Louis fiasco again. "You invited me for coffee."

"And I forced you to accept, did I?" Blair demands, her own cone taking on a mind of its own. "I marched you over to the cafe and poured the drink down your throat?"

"You're very pretty," he says then, his mouth lifting in a smirk. "Have I told you that?"

"Flattery gets you nowhere," but she's smiling and she laughs when Harry drops his cone right in the middle of the sidewalk. "There. Serves you right. Anyway, can't you conjure up a new one? What sort of wizard are you?"

"Food is one of the five Principle Exceptions of Gamp's Law for Elemental Transfiguration,' he says glumly, staring at the mess on the ground as Blair works her way through that sentence.

"Oh, well, you'll just have to live with it then." She starts walking again, waiting for Harry to catch up with her which he does with a couple of strides of those long legs, and then she says, "Are you planning on staying here?"

"In Italy?" Harry shrugs. "I don't really have an plans at all. I just had to get out of there and this was the first place that popped into my head... and now I don't really want to go back. Why?" A smile grows on his face. "Do you want to see me again?"

Blair rolls her eyes, looks somewhere over his shoulder when she says, "You're not the worst person I've ever met; you're interesting enough to entertain me."

"Oh, I see. You're just interested in my magical abilities." He smiles a lot, she notices. He looks different from the man who all but fell beside her earlier, so eager to get away from something. "I'm more than just a wizard, you know."

"Not that I've seen," she shrugs and turns her face away, finishing her cone, savouring the tip that's full of melted rich rum. "But if we ever happened to bump into each other again it wouldn't be such a tragedy."

They've ended up back where they started. Blair looks out across the water, aware of Harry watching her. "What if I accidentally bumped into you tomorrow around eight?"

"Is this your way of asking me out? Because it's pathetic." It's also almost exactly how Dan would phrase it. She pushes any more comparisons from her mind. This is where she is at the moment, this is what she's doing.

"Good thing this is purely platonic," Harry says, a smirk bending his lips. He nods at her as a way of goodbye and doesn't wait for an answer before he turns and walks back the way they came. He looks over his shoulder once, and Blair, annoyed at being caught watching, glares and turns back to the bright blue sea.

She keeps the possibility that she's dreamed the whole thing up in the forefront of her mind as she mentally sorts through her wardrobe for an outfit for tomorrow. Gamp's Law for Elemental Transfiguration. Honestly.


End file.
